This Land Is My Land: The Story of Reies López Tijerina

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In New Mexico during the 1960s, Reies López Tijerina transformed the issue of land rights into an issue of civil rights. He led a movement of Hispanos –people with Spanish, Mexican and Native American ancestry– who had lost their communal land to private landowners or government agencies and demanded it back. López Tijerina’s activism reached its peak with a shootout at a local courthouse in 1967.

Though he was controversial, López Tijerina put the fight for land ownership on a national stage in a way that challenged the basic power structure in New Mexico and the rest of the Southwest.

His personal family life has nothing to do with his mission of exposing the injustice that was done …. The fight for justice is still going on in many places…. God grant us justice for those murdered and those who always knew the truth.

He may of gotten the land grant going, but I personally know his family and have a niece, that is his granddaughter. He mistreated his family, very abusive man, and then he would put on a different face for the cause.

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